After Final Crisis and the "death" of Bruce Wayne, there was a major shakeup in the Batman family of books. Batman and Detective Comics were put on a months long hiatus, Nightwing, Robin, and Birds of Prey were canned, and several new titles with exciting creative teams were announced. When the Bat books returned at the beginning of this past summer, the only book that fell short of the hype was the character's titular series, Batman. My worst fears were recognized when it was announced that Judd Winick would be handling the series upon its revival, and as expected, the result was a hackneyed, cliche, and supremely boring series of issues that made me question how the man continually gets work in superhero comics. Thankfully, as of this week's Batman #692, Tony Daniel takes over. And though Daniel's Battle for the Cowl wasn't quite the success many had hoped, the man can draw, and judging by some of the plot threads started in this issue, has many plans for Dick Grayson's Dark Knight.

The issue isn't perfect by any means, but the imperfections are rather trivial and don't weigh the story down; nagging problems like overtly generic mobsters, complete with pencil thin mustaches and fedoras and the words "Kill this wise guy"! In fact, when I came across the pages featuring these characters my first thought was that Daniel was heading into some sort of flashback, until the narration told me otherwise - which leads me to the other problem with the book. Just like in Battle for the Cowl, Daniel relies much too heavily on character driven narration, often making the words and pictures repetitive of one another. To me, this is a strange habit for a combined writer/artist to have, but as I said, it's not a flaw that detracts from the enjoyment of the issue as a whole.

The plot essentially picks up from Battle for the Cowl, with Batman hunting Black Mask and enlisting Catwoman for help (brownie points for any and all Selina inclusions). The best part about Daniel's setup for his run is his selection of characters. Though we've got Bat regulars Dick, Catwoman, and Gordon, he also manages to tie this story into Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale's revered The Long Halloween and Dark Victory, as well as bringing Dr. Hugo Strange, Dr. Death, Fright (a Winick creation, but a cooler idea than Superboy-Prime reality punching Jason Todd back to life...I digress), and pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths obscure villain Reaper into the limelight.

Even though we've been seeing Dick Grayson's Batman kicking the tar out of baddies for months now, it was nice to see Daniel pick up the Batman/Catwoman relationship through his eyes. Dick even says in this issue that he never fully understood Selina and Bruce's relationship, and Daniel presents an interesting situation as far as how the two will co-exist out of respect for Bruce. Beyond this, don't expect to see much in the way of personal revelations in this issue, as Bats spends most of his screen time looking menacing and hurting the aforementioned mustached gangsters. Daniel is more efficient setting up the villains than he is giving Dick Grayson a spotlight, but in the end it all blends together for a fresh new start on a book that should have been leading the post-Final Crisis Batman universe.

As always, Daniel's pencil work with Sandu Florea on inks is phenomenal. True to form, his Batman is at his best when he's scowling or looking otherwise grim, but the action is always intense and exciting, and his layouts kinetic but rather simple. The collaboration with Florea really perpetuates his style; he loves shadows and contrast, as well as going very line heavy when doing closeup panels. Someday I would kill to see a black and white book put out by this art team. There are many points throughout this issue that would work great in that format, especially for the kind of tale Daniel seems intent on telling.

If you had Winickphobia and passed up Batman previously, I can assure you that things will be moving forward from now on, and it all starts in Batman #692.